To Otto Kyllmann
Hotel Bristol
Rome. January 14, 1932
Dear Mr. Kyllmann,
You must regard all four of the manuscripts in your possession as yours to keep or dispose of as you choose. If you said that any of them were still mine, I should have to offer them, as a gift, to the person asking for them, or to the club in question. It is for you to consider whether you would like to keep the four manuscripts (there will probably be no more, because now I have them copied by the type-writer); or whether you don’t mind parting with one or more of them, and in that case, what you think it fair to charge for them. Very little, I should say: because the probable motive of my American friends. I know Mr. Edgar Wells and suspect that his client may be Senator Cutting or Mr. J. P. Morgan–is not that they think the manuscripts may one day be of commercial value, but only a sort of collector’s mania and club spirit, as people collect autographs and book-plates and theatre-programmes. I always send my books to the club in question, but I doubt that the present under-graduates read them, or would prize the manuscript of one of them, otherwise than as just one more item in their library catalogue. Don’t hesitate to reply, then, that the manuscripts are not for sale, if you really like to have them: or if you don’t care particularly, you might offer all four in a batch, which I suppose would make them more valuable. I am busy about many things, like Martha, at this moment, and don’t know when anything fresh will be finished: but I hope to send you something before the end of 1932.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928–1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown